I don’t eat sweets often, maybe a few times per month. But in the last decade or two I have noticed that cake frostings have taken on oily, greasy or waxy texture. They’re also more light and fluffy than I remember from my adolescent days (the 70s & 80s). Almost as if the frosting has become whipped cream-based with 10X used only for sweetening, substance. And don’t get me started on canned frosting. That stuff is like melted candy bars - not even close to what I remember real frosting tasting like.
At first I thought it was just the cheap grocery store cakes using some nasty filler in their frosting like Cisco or something. But the textures of cakes from more trendy places seems to be have the same frosting problem. I fondly remember a bakery in my childhood neighborhood selling birthday cakes with the most delightfully dense and sweet frosting. I’m not sure if they used granulated sugar or 10X but when you rubbed the frosting between your tongue and hard palette you could almost feel the sugar granules suspended in the frosting, and most importantly there was no oily after-texture. And I don’t remember the frosting having a district flavor, it was just sugar-flavored. And I don’t ever remember seeing chocolate frosting in that shop either, all the frostings were pastel colored and similar tasting. And the smell of the shop was wonderful too, as if sugar was being created right there on site by the almighty herself.
So am I alone here or has anyone else noticed this too?
Yes I thought about searching for some recipes but I was afraid of not being able to identify the problem I mentioned in the OP and ending up with a batch of oily frosting. I was hoping for some pointers first such as “avoid ingredient x or use more of ingredients y and z” before I try my hand at making my own.
I tried searching for “That 70s Frosting” but nothing
I like buttercream icing, but most stores (there are no bakeries here) sell their cakes with something called bettercream, which is made with olestra and equal or some other hideous combination, and they are like eating toxic waste with a marshmallow consistency. I love cake, especially bakery cake, and know exactly what you’re talking about. Rosella alm, I have a recipe for vanilla buttercream. Do you have a good chocolate frosting recipe? Or vanilla - it helps to have more than one good recipe!
Well, my usual frosting is a hunk of butter and/or cream cheese with vanilla and powdered sugar mixed in until it’s a good texture. Is it possible that you’re missing something like boiled frosting? I know my mom’s better homes and gardens cookbook had some eggy frostings she never let me make because she didn’t think whatever cooking was required wouldn’t get hot enough to kill salmonella.
I am so glad I’m not the only one who noticed this. I think one poster hit on it with serving sizes. They reduce them so they try to make up for the sweetness.
I know what you mean about the greasy after-feel. I always thought everyone was using more crisco than before. We just had some cupcakes from my local grocery store though that are what you remember, sweet tasting with the sugar crystal feel and no greasy film. The frosting almost has a dry feel to it but it’s not dry.
The trend is, as mentioned, more likely to be away from saturated fats. Anything with trans fats is likely to be avoided as well, which might have been used in the past. Using networking equipment as filler is practiced by only a few modern bakers, though. (Probably because Nathan Myhrvold holds a patent on it.)
Baking is my job, not just my username, and I’m lucky enough to work in a cafe where, when I make cakes, I make the icing. Icing from cakes in grocery stores is just nasty these days, I’m sure it comes pre-made in big tubs, and the bakers there don’t make it themselves.
My recipe does have some shortening, but it has real butter too, and the shortening is not the soft, Crisco like stuff. It’s a really firm shortening done especially for bakers.
I cream together one part by weight of shortening and butter each, to two parts of powdered sugar. So it would be, say, 6 ounces butter, six ounces shortening, and twelve ounces powdered sugar. After this is thoroughly creamed together(I use a mixer and paddle) I usually add a little light cream, as the icing may still be too stiff. But add it gradually, beating some more, until it reaches the spreadability you want. I flavor the icing with a little almond extract, not vanilla, as it gives the icing a distinctive taste, but vanilla is of course good too. The flavoring is added with the light cream.
If you would like to try this and have any questions, PM me and I’ll do my best to answer.
I’m only a humble home baker, but my decorator icing recipe is much like the one Baker describes. I use whole milk rather than cream, and I add a pinch of salt. (And vanilla, because I’m not a fan of the almond extract.) It is killer. I use it for almost all birthday cakes.
However, when I make a cake for an event that’s a day or more after I deliver the cake, I don’t use butter or milk because I can’t be sure the people will refrigerate it. (I bake and decorate cakes for a program in town that provides cakes for kids whose parents can’t afford to pay $40 for a grocery store cake.) The icing is still better than most grocery store icing I’ve run across, but it’s not nearly as good as the real buttercream. (Baker, is this an unnecessary precaution? One of the ladies that runs the program told me to do that, and I’ve been blindly obeying.)
I also make a cooked icing when I make red velvet cake (from scratch; don’t even talk to me about red velvet cake box mix). I cook flour and milk till thick and chill overnight. Then I whip together with butter and granulated sugar. That stuff, you can definitely feel/taste the sugar granules suspended in the icing, as somebody mentioned above. I wouldn’t use that icing for every cake, but paired with the distinctive flavor of red velvet cake … wow. It definitely need to be refrigerated, though - it’s got such a high proportion of butter that it gets melty and weird if you leave it out of the fridge too long.
All of that is to say this: I think what has happened to frosting is that fewer and fewer home cooks are making it, and grocery stores are using cheaper and/or more shelf-stable ingredients to make their frosting. And it just doesn’t taste very good.
Thank for posting this. It sounds awesome and I’ll try it for my daughter’s birthday cake in February. Since my family’s recipe is a butter roux frosting with flour, my gluten intolerant daughter hasn’t had homemade frosting yet!
I haven’t found a grocery store cake with actual butter in the frosting in years. I rather like the one at my local Mariano’s (where they also hire cake decorators with actual skills! Gorgeous cakes.), but that one uses Palm Kernal Oil. It’s closer to the taste of my childhood memories of buttercream frosting, but it’s still not quite right. Like buttercream, it has a narrow window for temperature at which it’s firm enough but not hard.
I usually use 6:1. 6 parts powdered sugar to 1 part butter with a little whipping cream for spreadability. What I really want to do is an Italian buttercream (wedding cake butter cream). Any comments on my proportions and any good recipes for the Italian butter cream?
I’m sure the changing composition of Crisco has everything to do with it.
Unless you’ve discussed the issue with your cakemaker, the buttercream will be made with 100% Crisco and no butter–butter tastes better and they know it, but it’s more expensive and also doesn’t hold up as well. Some frou-frou bakers will agree to do half Crisco and half butter, but I doubt you’d find one who would go all butter.
Oh yes, they are correct. The place I work in is small and I don’t always have time to make the cake batter from scratch, although I can. But I’d never use premade icing, it’s an abomination. Any of the three brand name cake mixes are good, but the one I prefer is Duncan Hines I put that in spoiler tags because I’m not sure if I’m supposed to advocate the purchase of any particular product.
